Close to the Edge by Sujatha Fernandes Page B

for the box when we would break. By the end of the summer those tapes were just worn through.”
    Jermaine was an older guy from Mike's neighborhood. “This dude had a huge box that was like the size of a coffee table,” Mike recalled, “and he was a big dude so he could carry it around all over the place. He always had the latest music and he would have it on tape. He would bring it to school. He was huge—he was like Raheem from Do the Right Thing. He was later run over and killed by a cop. He was a great guy and everybody loved him; he was a real part of everybody's breakin.’ He was the spark that initiated hip hop and brought it to a younger generation. He was part of the community, and it was a real tremendous shock when he was killed purposefully by the police. That was never investigated. I don't think anybody was ever arrested for his death.”
    The early history of hip hop culture on the South Side, like life in general, was connected to gangs and their control of the territory. Mike explained: “The two main gang alliances in Chicago were Folks and People, just like the Bloods and Crips of LA. The gangs were involved with drug trafficking and grand theft, and the gangs made it possible to unite and operate a tight system to get around the police structure. They also contributed to building the community. That doesn't mean it's rosy growing up in a neighborhood where the gang is controlling your streets, because as a kid they want you in. If you're in, it means you're protected, but you also have a tremendous responsibility to that gang. If you're not in, you can still work with them and gain some protection from rival gangs, which is what I did. I had seen friends in gangs being killed or committed to a life in prison. Despite the stability of the gang's presence, it was still very tenuous, and to commit everything to that was pretty scary. But it's also pretty scary to be on your own. Our area was controlled by the Gangster Disciples, one of Chicago's most notorious gangs, and Two Six, which comes from the name Twenty-sixth Street, a Mexican gang which came down from Pilsen and moved south. They were both part of the Folk Nation, so our area was controlled by the Folks when I was growing up.”
    On Chicago's South Side graffiti art was strongly tied to gangs’ establishing territory and communicating events and murders. To go over someone else's tag could have dire consequences. As Mike related, “I was not a tagger growing up because I was scared that I'd fuck around and piss somebody off and, next thing I know, I'd be getting shot. Graffiti definitely had a different context in terms of the gangs.
    â€œThe beautiful thing about hip hop was that it really gave you a sense of your own humanity in the midst of seeing and experiencing some truly horrible shit,” he concluded. “Where we grew up, it was like living in a war zone. That kind of traumatic experience. And hip hop really infused your common everyday experience with new life and even hope. For many of my friends it didn't translate into a real hope; it was fleeting. A lot of them are dead, a lot of them are in jail. I'm the only one who made it out. I had a stability that others didn't have, like two parents and step-parents who could pool their income to pay for my education and eventually get me out of there.”
    We loaded the mattress into Mike's parents’ van, and he drove me back to Hyde Park. With the start of the school year, and our busy lives, it would be another year or so before our paths crossed again. On that evening I had little inkling that Mike would turn out to be my future husband.
    I was keen to find out more about Chicago hip hop, especially its underground scene, but living in Hyde Park made this kind of exploration difficult. Hyde Park was an island of privilege on the South Side. During the 1950s and 1960s the University of Chicago had carried out an urban renewal project in